“Slant route” actually has something to do with football. It has a context which is so strong that you don’t even consider that it might be offensive (in some other context).

“Chink in the Armor” has no such context with relation to basketball. It’s a phrase pulled out of the blue, used to represent something the author/editor wanted to say. Because of the lack of context, the reader will automatically look for the context (even just to benignly understand the metaphor). Unfortunately, the context that most easily explains why this particular line was chosen (out of the many that could have similarly gotten across the idea of a hole in Lin’s game) is exactly what the guy got suspended over.

And, remember… it doesn’t matter if he meant it this way or not. He should have known that this was the likely outcome of using such a phrase.

It would be like covering a women’s sporting event and using the headline, “A Hole in the Dike.” Or a team of little people and using the headline, “Team X Comes Up Short.”

Do you really need someone to stop you before you use those headlines? Do you really need someone to explain it to you?

If you see racism in this would it then be racist to say something like, ‘He ran a good slant route on that play.’ if the WR was Asian? Both that and chink in the armor are terms that include a racist word but have nothing to do with race itself.

I do have a feeling that if he does something wrong, people will nail him to a tree (metaphorically of course). Hope he keeps it up though.

But as a dude, Tebow hasn’t done anything to change my perspective that he is a good person. As a qb, he’s got some work to do, but so do Peyton, Eli, Tom, and my guy, Matt Schaub.